Why Turkey?
Turkey currently supports the largest refugee population. And with current events no other country is receiving the influx of refugees like Turkey. Geographically it is near Iran and Afghanistan, which are in the top ten most persecuted countries with Afghanistan holding the number one spot.
What We Are Doing With A Shelter?
We are very active in Turkey, coordinating with underground churches to help shelter persecuted believers, and continuing to teach and counsel them. Sheltering these believers is proving more and more difficult and we need a permanent shelter to house these families. VOC has started a project to rent a shelter for 12 months while we build up the necessary resources to purchase property in Turkey to house these believers in a more economical and secure way. Our plan will be to temporarily house these families while helping them acclimate to the culture, teach them the language and help them find work and register legally.
Why We Need To Build This Shelter? 
This young Christian couple both served in the Afghan military. The husband fought alongside US soldiers against the Taliban in a specialized anti-terrorist unit for five years (pictured bottom right). The wife also served as medical personnel (pictured bottom left). August 15, 2021, changed their lives forever. After the collapse of the Afghan government the Taliban regime targeted this couple not only for their military service but because of their faith in Christ. The wife’s family are involved with the Taliban and one of her cousins placed a $2,000 USD bounty on their heads. Forced to flee from their homes this family was living on the streets of Iran with their three small children. Even in Iran they were hunted by those seeking to collect the bounty and angry family members. There is hope we can relocate this couple to a shelter, but we need your help, we need a permanent shelter to put families like them in.
How We Will Make All This Happen?
Phase I: Raise $15,000 by Sept 2022 to rent a small shelter for one year.
Phase II: Raise $250,000 by September 2023 to purchase a building for our Living Hope Center.
Phase III: Maintain the Living hope center for $1,000 monthly.
Once we have purchased the safe house, we will be able to run this larger facility for around twelve-thousand US dollars a year. Not only is it more cost effective in the long term but it will allow us to help many more people than the first phase of renting the small apartment.
We already have a paid field worker employed by VOC to help facilitate this ministry, and we have connections with 6 churches in Turkey made up almost entirely of persecuted individuals. The time is right, now we are just looking for partners to join us in making this next step in our growing ministry possible.
If you are interested, please visit our donations page or add us to your prayer list.